XXI.
SCENES FROM HOSPITAL AND CAMP.
“HE FOUGHT MIT SIEGEL.”—A HOSPITAL SCENE AT NIGHT.—ADMINISTERING ANGELS.—“WATER! WATER!”—THE SOLDIER-BOY’S DYING MESSAGE.—THE WELL-WORN BIBLE.—WARM HEARTS IN FROZEN BODIES.—“PUDDING AND MILK.”—THE POETICAL AND AMUSING SIDE.—“TO AMELIA.”—MY LOVE AND I.—A SCRIPTURAL CONUNDRUM.—MARRYING A REGIMENT.
I met him again; he was trudging along,
His knapsack with chickens was swelling;
He’d “blenkered” these dainties, and thought it no wrong,
From some secessionist’s dwelling.
“What regiment’s yours, and under whose flag
Do you fight?” said I, touching his shoulder;
Turning slowly about, he smilingly said,—
For the thought made him stronger and bolder,—
“I fights mit Siegel.”
The next time I saw him, his knapsack was gone,
His cap and his canteen were missing;
Shell, shrapnell, and grape, and the swift rifle-ball,
Around him and o’er him were hissing.
“How are you, my friend, and where have you been?
And for what, and for whom, are you fighting?”
He said, as a shell from the enemy’s gun
Sent his arm and his musket a-kiting,
“I fights mit Siegel.”
We scraped out his grave, and he dreamlessly sleeps
On the bank of the Shenandoah River;
His home and his kindred alike are unknown,
His reward in the hands of the Giver.
We placed a rough board at the head of his grave,
“And we left him alone in his glory,”
But on it we cut, ere we turned from the spot,
The little we knew of his story—
“I fights mit Siegel.”—Grant P. Robinson.
If any of the little “life stories” which I here relate in this brief chapter, have perchance before met the reader’s eye, I can only say that they cannot be read too often. We need no longer go back to remotest history—to Joan d’Arc, Grace Darling, Florence Nightingale, nor to revolutionary scenes—to find “cases of courage and devotion, for no annals are so rich as ours in these deliberate acts of unquestioning self-sacrifice, which at once ennoble our estimate of human nature, and increase the homage we pay to the virtues of women.”
A Hospital Scene at Night.
Night gathered her sable mantle about earth and sky, and the cold, wintry wind swept around the temporary hospital with a mournful wail, a rude lullaby, and a sad requiem to the wounded and dying soldier boys who crowded its rankling wards. Through the dark, sickly atmosphere, by the flickering lamp-lights, are just discernible the long rows of suffering, dying humanity. As the wind lulls, the sighs and groans of the unfortunate sufferers greet your ears on every side. “Water, water!” is the general request.
Every moment new ones are added to the mangled and suffering throng, as they are brought in from the battle-field and the amputating-room. The surgeons are busily at work. Every able-bodied soldier must be at the front, for the emergency is great. Ah! who shall give the “water” which raging thirst momentarily demands? Who is to soothe the fearful anguish, from lacerated nerve and muscle, by cruel shot and shell? And who shall smooth the dying pillow, hear the last prayer, for self, and for loved ones far away in the northern homes? And who will kindly receive the dying messages for those dear ones,—wife, children, father, mother,—whom he never will see again, and kiss the pallid cheek, commend the soul to God, and close the eyes forever of the poor soldier boy, who died away from home and friends, in the hospital?